Overtime rules set to take effect now in flux following ruling in Federal court

Extrusion Co. plant in Rome, said his company had already made all of the arrangements necessary to meet the requirement of the new regulations.

“We’re not going to change that,” Newby said. “It forced us to look at things; it’s probably something all employers need to look at. You don’t want to abuse a salaried employee and at Profile we try to make sure we don’t do that.”

Floyd County Manager Jamie McCord said that the county payroll has about 40 employees who would be impacted by the decision.

“We’ll do what federal law says until it changes,” he said. “We’re prepared either way.”

Kevin Cowling, head of the Rome-Floyd Parks and Recreation Department, said he has nine employees who fall into the salary range that would have been impacted by the change. He said because of the holidays last week he had not had an opportunity to speak with any of them since the ruling.

Rome City Manager Sammy Rich said that the city had its list of potentially affected employees down to 10 or 12, but wasn’t sure how the city was going to proceed.

“I haven’t had a chance to speak with Human Resources Manager Rita Odom since the ruling came down,” he said.

Labor attorney David Guldenschuh said the ruling was important for a couple of reasons. He said the primary issue raised by the plain- tiffs was whether or not the Department of Labor had the right to issue any regulations that would bind states on wage and hour issues. “The judge ended up entering a decision that not only applies to the state, but to everybody: states, for-profit corporations, it applies to nonprofits. He issued a ruling that went much beyond what the limited purpose of the lawsuit was,” he said.

The other aspect of the ruling the Rome attorney felt was unique was that Mazzant’s finding that there is nothing in the law that says the DOL has the right to set a salary level.

“The statute says all it has the right to do is define what the duties are under the administrative, executive and professional categories that allow them to be exempt (from overtime pay). There is nothing in the law itself that says it can come up with a salary level and that’s what threw the whole thing out,” he said.

Overtime rules had been part of the latest actions by the City of Aragon, whose new council members agreed to pay out previous comp time to employees who had built up overtime for a variety of reasons.

New Mayor Garry Baldwin chose to implement a policy to curtail employee comp time building up by no longer requiring department heads to be present for city council meetings unless requested.

Other local governments and businesses are also waiting for the results of the upcoming decision by the courts.